History Project Part One: The JETS, from three seats.

I've come up with a new idea. Only time will tell if its worthwhile.

In an effort to shore up my quickly fading memory, I've decided to try and remember every concert I've ever been to, and write something about it.

Now, as Billy Bob Thornton said in Bad Santa "They can't all be winners, kid" So, some will get a blissed out narrative while others will get a catalog-like description (Say, 40 Acres Fest, or any band that I saw for under $10).

Most likely, the entries themselves will have little to do with the actual shows themselves, as not even I care about 10 year old concert reviews.

The first concert I can remember attending was for a band called The JETS when I was in elementary school. Since I don't remember most things that happened before the Seventh Grade Dance, this first entry is going to be written in stages. I'll write everything I can remember about the experience, and then talk to the other main players: my brother and my cousin.











--MY TAKE ON THE MATTER--

First and foremost, I have no idea how I even got to go to this show. We didn't go to shows when I was a kid. We went to the converted mobile home that served as the local library and we went to family barbecues...and I'm talking the homemade brick barbecues built in the backyard, not some Weber Grill BS. Shows specifically (and events that cost money generally) just weren't on the radar.


My only memory of The JETS pre-show was an album cover over at my Tia Mary's house. (Note: ALBUM cover, talking about actual records here, old timey stuff). The JETS from their photo seemed like a nice enough, young group. All singers. Possibly a Menudo rip off. My cousin Pat and her sister used to babysit me and my bro when we were very young. I always liked it when they watched us because they'd make us pancakes for dinner.

I think they'd stopped doing that awhile back when we got invited to the show. I don't know if my cousin Pat had free tickets, or had a friend bail, or got bribed by my parents. No clue. Of course, as a kind, you NEVER think of the stuff that is going on the background. Its just OF COURSE I want to go to a concert! I LOVE concerts! Wait, what's a Concert?

I remember being very excited about the Jet show before we went. I remember peppering my brother with questions about what to expect at the show. I remember asking if we'd get to do the Wave (he said no). I asked if there would be CANDY (he said no). I remember the show was held in downtown SA, maybe at Hemisphere arena, although probably somewhere smaller, like Majestic or the Lila Cockrell.

To be perfectly honest, my memories from that show are made up of the peripherals. I remember how loud it was. I remember how stoked I was that they had Peanut M&M's. And, guess what? We DID do the Wave at the concert! But most of all, I remember the drive to the concert. I think my cousin had a two door compact. I was in the front seat. We parked in a parking garage near the venue. The parking garage was one of those multilevel concrete jobbies with the corkscrew shaped up ramp that went all the way up to the top.

By the time we got downtown I was too excited for words. My brother had refused to clue me on what the show would be like, so my imagination was off and running. As we entered the parking garage, Pat slammed on the gas, and took us zooming and twisting up the corkscrew. I was stunned, I was confused, I was scared. I think I heard her laughing as we jerked from side to side in that little car. I thought we were being chased.

It was just one fleeting moment, but its the best memory I have of Jet. Entering the second turn, lurching in my seat, looking up at the ADULT, smiling and enjoying herself and messing with her little cousins. Heart in my mouth and stomach in the floor. Welcome to the show.

--My BRO'S TAKE ON THE SHOW--

So, I talked to Chris about The JETS concert. He remembered some more technical details, but came up lacking on the behind-the-scenes info that I so craved. Chris confirmed that the band WAS called The JETS (Score one for the deegster's memory.) But Chris corrected me that Pat's sister, Zibbit*, took us to the show. (See, this whole experiment proves that I need external sources for my own memories. I'm going to spend the rest of my life trying to get people on the record, like a 40 yr version of All the President's Men).

*Zibbit, short for Elizabeth. Did I come up with that nickname for my cousin Elizabeth? I like to think so. I still use it. I wonder if that bugs her?
People I met in Middle School still call me Deegan, and I don't mind. People I know from law school still WON'T call me Major* and I mind that very much.

*Major, as in, Major Deegan Expressway. Sadly, it never caught on.

Chris told me he looked Jet up on Wikipedia a few years back. They were a family band, that got taken to the cleaners by their original manager. "A sad story" he said. Chris remembers the concert as being a fairly last minute affair. He agreed with me that it was a very small venue, and that the concert was during the day time. He wasn't nearly as interested in the "how did this happen?" aspect, and could offer no clues. Sadly, he did not remember the car ride to the stadium. Nor did her remember ever listening to the Jet record. Although I clearly remember seeing it.*

*Of course, I also remember him trying to convince me that his Men at Work record (yellow sleeve, and again, emphasizing the fact that these were actual records) was the bee's knees.

--ZIBBIT'S VERSION--

As luck would have it, I got to see Zibbit over Christmas break, and got to spring my nostalgia questions on her. My mother, with her unlimited capacity to humor me, stuck around our family party past our scheduled departure time because she knew I was waiting for Zibbit. (Mom doesn't remember the show, and she swears she didn't bribe Zibbit to take us. She also denies handing out fliers to strangers asking them to please take me off her hands for short stretches of time when I was young....which is what I would have done). Honestly, I'm shocked that I wasn't Paddington Bear'd by the time I was 7.

Zibbit and her husband Al solved most of the mystery. Yes, we had gone to see The JETS. Props to husband Al for INSTANTLY knowing the answer to this question, and bonus points for his remembering and singing a Jet song.


Turns out, Zibbit worked for a P.R. agency and had gotten free tickets to the show. Al remembered the details better than Zibbit. He was off at basic training and was jealous that me and my brother got to go (he'd been stuck going to the Stuttgart Ballet...sucker). Both me and my brother were right that the show had taken place during the day, and somehow, I had actually guessed the right venue, Lila Cockrell*

*Where I would go on to slay all competitors in a 3 year run of Science Fair supremacy.

It was a longshot, but I went ahead and asked Zibbit about the car ride. When I described my memory of the parking garage, Zibbit's sister and husband both burst out laughing. Her sister knew EXACTLY what I was talking about, and had been taken on a similar corkscrew swirl of her own. Zibbit explained that she parked at the top of that garage every day for work, and by that point thought nothing of zooming her way up the ramps. When I told her it was my lasting memory from the show the whole room agreed.

--So that's my first show. Nice to know that I got at least some of it right. I loved going back and peeking behind the curtain. Next up, (no kidding) Young M.C. and Milli Vanilli: a tale that involves betrayal, jealousy, and a half eaten funnel cake.

Agricultural Tourism

Sure, they look happy now, but wait
till the buzz wears off.

Mack Brown came to Texas while I was still in undergrad. The Longhorn Football program had been in a funk for some time, so they brought an out-of-stater in, to shake things up.

That first year, the football team had a slogan that went (something like) *Come Early*Be Loud*Wear Orange*

If I was to advise folks on how to attend the Tomatina, it'd go (something like) *Come Early*Be Drunk*Wear Goggles*

Come Early: in order to be in the mix, you gotta be close to the trolleys, and to get close to the trolleys, you gotta be at the front of the parade route. Oh and all the bars (wisely) close by the start of the Tomatina, and you need to make sure you
Be Drunk: it makes the details like your lack of sleep, minor assaults and mob-like overcrowding seem way funnier.
Wear Goggles: you may not be able to see much during the event, but you'll still be able to see afterwards. And, after all, cultural food fights be damned, you've still got a test tomorrow.

I got into a fight with Frenchie before the Tomatina. He didn't see the point in throwing down 50 euros to take an overnight bus to some middle of nowhere town to hurl tomatoes at strangers for a few hours. (THIS is why it could never have worked out...)

To me, it was a no-brainer. Merely another (and more literal) step in the immersion experience.

Turns out, the highlight of the event may have been the beginning.

As discussed in the last post (seems like yesterday) the tomato slinging can't begin until somebody pulls a ham down from a 30 foot high greased pole. Use teamwork, Sin problema? right? Nope. Rarely have a group of drunken dudes been poorer equipped to perform a task.

Any and all progress/ascent is torn down by the actions of envious also-rans. Its a parade, its a mosh pit, its a really messy opera. And its got a cast of characters:

Crazy Rugby Guy: green t-shirt, all neck and biceps this one. He'd barrel his way up the base of the pole, attacking it, and his fellow climbers, with equal ferocity. He never made it too far up the pole. He was too busy settling scores along the way.

Eric the Wanker: Lanky blond haired kid. We knew his name because it was written on the back of his shirt...right above a bulls eye. He was lighter and better suited to scamper up his fellow climbers and made decent progress. But, he lost all of the crowd's support, and earned his title (which was
chanted at him) after he grabbed by the throat and tossed down...

Brave Girl(s) 1-3: I think in total we had three girls give the greased pole a go. And none of them until a half hour in. My guess is that the girls needed to be waaaay drunker to decide this was a good idea. All of the girls were crowd favorites, and actually got some support (among other things) from their fellow climbers. But, after Eric's heinous and bloodthirsty act, the girls rarely made it past the first rung. (Maybe it was the lack of sensible shoes).

The Banana: My personal favorite. A guy in a banana suit. He was literally carried on peoples' shoulders thru the crowd and toward pole. Chiquita raised a whole host of new questions: What's with the banana suit? Attention seeker? Mockumentary Filmmaker? Laundry Day?


Now, I've seen a Twinkee go skiing and a Bear take an Intro to Marketing exam. Hell, I've even worn a cape for good luck (but not in a long time...no, really, months). Someday I'll have to stop that banana, halfway up a greased pole, and ask him "what makes you tick" Or, I could just lay off the acid.

And finally, The Cow: Another costumed character, but this one (somehow) seemed less elegant than his fruity counterpoint. But what the bovine lacked in class, he made up for in skill, as he made it up quite high.

There was actually a moment when we had the cow, 30 ft in the air, dangling from the ham at the top of the pole...legs flailing, udders exposed; receiving such helpful advice from the crowd as "MOOO!" and the occasional flip flop tossed at his head. I'm sure there was some cultural insight to be gained then, but I was too busy shouting "come mas pollo!" while pounding warm San Miguels.

Sadly, this gang of jokers never managed to actually bring the ham down. They just managed to unwrap its netting. But, the day wasn't getting any cooler, and the crowd wasn't getting any soberer, so the powers-that-be deemed the ham "gotten" and so the cannons sounded and out came the trolleys.

[Helpful tip, if you hear the chant of 'camiseta, camiseta' in your vicinity, take your shirt off, or have it ripped from your body. Now, if you hear the chant of 'pantalones, pantalones' RUN! You're at the wrong festival!]

People do get their shirts ripped off, the reasoning behind it isn't clear. What IS clear is that when those shirts get wet, they can be used as some seriously stinging whips. Why are the shirts getting wet? Oh yeah, because there are a cluster of enormous water cannons, indiscriminately spraying the crowd...ostensibly to keep us from overheating, but really, just trying to knock folks over.

So here's how the Tomatina works. After the canons go off, 5 gi-normous trolleys (dumptrucks, really) drive thru the choked streets (how no one get run over here is a miracle). The dump trucks stop at predesignated spots along the street and 10-15 people in the back of each trolley dumps loads, and loads, of just-past-prime tomatoes on the cheering crowd. The whole thing is reminiscent of the musical numbers performed along a parade route...but much harder to wash out of your hair.

These early stages are hectic. Everyone is pressed along the sides of the streets. Although climbing walls/telephone poles is considered, anyone at a higher elevation is a natural target, with further to fall. The main goal here is to stay above the fray, flinging tomatoes that are tossed your way, and acclimatizing to the conditions (like scuba).

All of these trucks eventually dump their remaining tomatoes (and passengers) into the middle of the road. This is when the real war commences. You see, by now, the above mentioned water cannons have been spraying the entire street for almost an hour. So when the contents of the trucks come pouring out, we've got more of a V-8 River than a Street.

Once the battle gets going in earnest, everything speeds up. You're struggling to see thru foggy goggles, getting knocked silly with pulp and trying to respond in the general direction of your assailants. At some point you have to make the call, stay on the sidewalk, or dive into the river with the crazies?

So, into the river you go, fishing for tomatoes in the red soup, ruining that pair of $10 sneakers you bought specifically to ruin, half wishing you were bald and loving every slightly acidic minute of it. The laughing sloshing romp continues until the second cannon fires. You pull off your goggles and squint in the bright sunlight.

You and your fellow tomatina-ers look like extras from 28 days later: Tattered clothes, dazed expressions, lots of fake looking gore.

Taking the whole scene in, you shake your head, starting to chuckle at the madness of it all--until WHACK! the first soaked t-shirt smacks you in the face. Time to get the F out of here.